13 years after Dayton accord, ethnic divisions again threaten Bosnia

Thirteen years after the United States brokered the Dayton peace agreement
to end modern Europe's most ferocious ethnic war, fears are mounting that
Bosnia and Herzegovina, poor and divided, is again teetering toward
crisis.

On the surface, this haunted capital, its ancient mosques and Orthodox
churches still pocked with holes from mortar fire, appears to be enjoying
a renaissance. Young professionals throng to stylish cafés and gleaming
new shopping centers while the muezzin heralds the morning prayer. The
ghosts of Srebrenica linger - recalling the worst massacre in Europe since
World War II - but Sarajevans prefer to talk about Barack Obama or the
global financial crisis than about genocide.

Yet the aftermath of war is ever present. The Dayton accord divided Bosnia
and Herzegovina, a former Yugoslav republic, into a Muslim-Croat
federation and a Serb republic after a savage war from 1992 to 1995 in
which about 100,000 people were killed, the majority of them Muslims. A
million more Muslims, Serbs and Croats were driven from their homes, while
much of this rugged country's infrastructure was destroyed.